Basic HTML Intro Course

I learned HTML the hard way. My first ever blog, called LCH’s Blog is pretty defunct nowadays. However, I feel a certain connection to it, because it was my initial foray out into the world of blogging. That was back in 2001. I learned basic html on my own via personal observation and through online sources like Webmonkey.

You can see a website’s code if you go up to your toolbar and click on “View.” Next, scroll down and click on “page source.” Sometimes there’s really strange stuff in there. *laughs*

I can’t tell you the number of times just in the past couple of weeks that I’ve been puttering along, reading a great blogger, only to see either them say something like “I would like to put links in, but I don’t know how.”

So basics. First, we’ll start simple. In order to make things bold (other than just hitting control B), you have do one of two things:

HTML code goes in front of words and then behind. You make your statement, and then you close your mouth. The code for what I just wrote is this: “HTML code goes in <b>front</b> of words and then <b>behind</b>.”

The second version is just as simple, just a little longer. See? “The second version is just as simple, just a little <strong>longer</stronger>.”

Two choices exist for italics as well. Generally, both of these should work, but there are some places (like my comment screen) that will only take one of the two (in the case of my comment screen, it only takes the second of these two).

Wow, it sure is nice to meet you. = “Wow it sure is <i>nice</i> to meet you.”

Vs. “Wow, it sure is <em>nice</em> to meet you.”

Funny story, I was writing an exam essay once and was behind on time, so I was really booking it, you know? When I got done, I realized that I had switched into shorthand and had stuck HTML in there to indicate italics and whatnot! *laughs* I had to explain it to my teacher. *smacks head* OY.

A couple of others:

Underlining is always fun. There are two choices here too, but the second one is a little more complex, so I won’t tell you that part. Simply put, here’s what I did: “<u>Underlining</u> is always fun.”

And then I laughed nodded sympathetically. That’s what’s called a “strike through.” On most web pages, minus WordPress of course *rolls eyes*, here’s what you do: “And then I <s>laughed</s> nodded sympathetically.” Fun, no?

Okay, I know your brains are probably going whee POOF right now. How about just a couple more things?

So say you wanted to include a pic in your post? That’s pretty simple actually. You just need to have a picture link that ends with some of these letters: “jpeg, gif, bmp, png” something . . .

One thing you don’t want to FORGET is this: When including any kind of link – be it pic or hyperlink or whatever, don’t forget to include the “http://” at the beginning. Otherwise, it won’t work.

If you’re linking from another site and want to find the code for a pic, there are a couple of different things you can do:

Complex option: Go to View –> Page source and look at all the code. Bleah.

Medium option: Right click on a pic and scroll down your menu until you get to “properties.” Click on that, and you’ve got it.

Easy: I can’t remember the exact words that Explorer uses for this option, but I can tell you what Firefox’s are. Right click on a pic, like in the medium option, and scroll down until you see: “Copy Image Location.” Click that, and then you can just paste it wherever you want. Muahahhahaha.

Okay, now say you want to embed a link somewhere. Not too hard, right? After all, everyone’s doing it, right?

Well, it’s not too hard. It just uses one simple code (I almost wrote in “chord” *snorts*). Webmonkey has all kinds of good links. For instance, they have a color code chart that kicks brass (musician humor).

Quote of the month, year or galactic standard week (whichever comes first):

"To be 'sociable' - to talk merely because convention forbids silence, to rub against one another in order to create the illusion of intimacy and contact: what an example of la condition humaine. Exhausting, naturally, like any improper use of our spiritual resources. In miniature, one of the many ways in which mankind successfully acts as its own scourge--in the hell of spiritual death." - Dag Hammarskjöld; translated from Swedish by Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden.